A Spanish debt collecting agency is using an alternative strategy to make people pay their debts: Public humiliation.

One of their methods is to dress up in flamboyant costumes and confront debtors at their homes or in public in order to attract maximum attention.

Not sure what is most humiliating: To be confronted by someone wearing a ridiculous outfit - or being the employee who has to wear it?

• El Cobrador Del Frac + You Tube

A bit of self promotion: A new souvenir concept that I have developed for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denmark just launched. Here follows a description:
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Social Souvenir is an installation and souvenir concept that creates links and social experiences between museum visitors.

The concept is based on 300 T-shirts that are exhibited and put on sale at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde, Denmark. Each T-shirt is imprinted with a text fragment inspired by 15 renowned artists represented in the museum's collection, such as Yoko Ono, Erik Satie, Marcel Duchamp and Per Højholt.

Visitors can buy a T-shirt of their own choice, the only condition being that they share a bit of personal information about themselves, or more precisely: their name and address. When paying for the T-shirt at the museum-shop, the information is automatically mapped in Google Maps, thereby making it possible to see where each T-shirt ends up after leaving the museum.

During the course of the exhibition, the 300 T-shirts will gradually disappear from the physical museum space only to re-appear on the web. Consequently, by buying a T-shirt visitors do not simply get a personal piece of the installation - they also help contribute to its collective development and distribution.

• www.socialsouvenir.net

In conjunction with the Amsterdam Fashion Week earlier this year, the local fashion store SPRMRKT staged an unconventional catwalk show.

SPRMKT briefly hijacked the nearby Albert Heijn supermarket causing a line of models to mix with everyday groceries and surprised customers.

If you wonder about the connection between a fashion store and a supermarket: The name SPRMRKT is an abbreviation of 'supermarket'.

• Video on YouTube + Images

'AH to go' (a mini version of the Albert Heijn supermarket) at Amsterdam Central Station is not only a very busy mini-supermarket, but also a very user-friendly one.

Here you can bring your bike without employees freaking out and you can also use the microwave self-service to heat up your ready-made AH food.

The label on the microwave reads: please pay before heating.

I am not sure the informal usage and ad-hoc setup is what the retail-designers had in mind, but it's nice to see people tweak things to fit their needs.

• AH to go (retail presentation).

Here is an ambient advertising stunt with some basic qualities that should make most people smile and perhaps even eat more carrots.

Designed by a Portland based agency for Gorge Grown Farmers Market.

Related: Giant Adidas Shoe Box and Giant Lego Bricks.

• adsoftheworld.com

In conjunction with next year's UN Climate Conference to be held in Copenhagen, an initiative called Co2penhagen will host a carbon neutral festival, supposedly the first of its kind.

The festival will be comprised of events ranging from concerts, installations and exhibitions and the idea is not just to let festival goers have fun with a clear conscience but, more importantly, to use the festival as an experiential showcase of local know-how, imagination and innovation within the field of sustainable energy.

Danish based companies, organisations, inventors and researchers are thus invited to support the festival through active participation.

One of the plans already in mind, is to employ the energy created by competing teams of bike riders to power up the festival's sound and lighting system. The team generating the most power will win.

Related: Carbon Neutral Community

• co2penhagen.com (so far in Danish only)

A few weeks ago I spent a weekend at the mysterious Hotel Amour, rumored to be a former rent-by-the-hour hotel in Pigalle, Paris' red light district.

The history of the place now serves as Amour's theme - from the name and interior to its philosophy. In their own words: "Even though we love kids; Hotel Amour is indeed a more appropriate place to make babies rather than bringing them".
Like art hotels such as Winston, Fox and Des Arts, each of Hotel Amour's 20 rooms are different and have their own character, most of them styled by co-owner and street artist Monsieur André.

Some notes: Rooms must be booked in person or by phone. In the age of doing everything via the web, this can be quite a challenge, especially in French. Furthermore, you won't find much (any) information on their website thus fueling the mystique and myths about the place. Actually, the one-page website has been down for the past 4-5 weeks - perhaps they don't mind, because guests appear to be regulars and information about the hotel is virally distributed anyway (word of mouth). Rooms do not have conventional hotel-stuff like: TV, hairdryer, table, chairs, minibar and telephone, all of which urban travelers don't really need anyway. Besides the atmospheric decor, rooms are basically just fitted with queen-sized beds, an i-Pod base and a bathroom with Kiehl's skin and hair products. During my stay, a jazz quintet was playing live in the neighboring room. The SM/erotic picture on my wall didn't match the rest of the room's colorful cartoon-like style and for some Lynchian reason, the picture wouldn't hang straight. The restaurant/bar is frequented by local non-hotel guests, which is a total plus because it generates a lively non-hotelish atmosphere. Amour is not just a 'hotel with personality' but also a 'personal hotel' where basic human interactions seem to be in focus. Despite its somewhat hip reputation, it is quite relaxed and unpretentious.

• hotelamour.com (currently/permanently down)

The (excellent) free cultural paper Amsterdam Weekly has launched a fundraising campaign in which they've taken their own editorial content hostage. Readers must collaborate and pay a ransom if they want the content to be printed or else, Amsterdam Weekly will consist of blank pages.

It works like this: Each of the paper's upcoming pages has been divided into blocks and each block is being sold for €5. Readers can buy one block or as many as a full page.

Only blocks that are being sold will be printed. If the sale is not successful, readers will receive a paper missing individual blocks of content.

Nb: if you buy at least 3 blocks you'll get an invitation to a fundraising party on Saterday 26 April.

• www.amsterdamweekly.nl/forsale

Karriere is a newly opened and much hyped (rightfully so) bar in Copenhagen where everything from the name to the interior has been designed by a long list of artists, such as Olafur Eliasson, Ceal Floyer, Douglas Gordon, Jesper Just, Robert Stadler, Dan Graham etc.

Now, the price on selected drinks at Karriere Bar has been turned into a work of art by artist Kenneth A. Balfelt, who created a 'price policy' that experiments with the relation between price- and social structures.

The new prices are determined by your look and circumstances related to your person. It is the waiters and bartenders who decide if you qualify for the special prices

Some price examples: Yuppies pay extra for beer. Hippies and activists pay extra for organic soda. The homeless get a discount on cafe cortado. Gay couples who French kiss for 30 seconds get a discount on apfelschorle. Immigrants, asians who speak Danish as well as blacks in company of whites get various discounts. And so on.

Probably not politically correct, but it should generate some unexpected and interesting situations!

• karrierebar.com